Walking through a street in Southeast Asia, I always find myself reminded how impossible it is to adequately describe the experience with words and pictures. Neither can transport the sounds and smells, the movement and the atmosphere. While a video will still fall far short of really showing what it’s like, it does give a slightly deeper impression. Hence here it goes, five minutes in the streets of a small town in the Shan state.

Thanks to atrociously slow internet in the country, I couldn’t upload any videos while in Myanmar. KL is a little more on the fast track, so here we go with a look back.

Just as I had done in Luang Prabang a few years ago, I wanted to go for a two-day/one-night hike in the Hsipaw area. Sadly there weren’t any tours going and I didn’t feel like paying for a guide just for myself. So instead I went for the available option, which was a one-day trek to one of the villages in the hills. Our group of seven tourists, one guide and one apprentice guide started out at 8:00 in the morning, just outside the city limits.

Aaaaaaai really don’t like bus rides. Especially not the painfully slow ones. After leaving Mandalay yesterday afternoon around 2pm, the (reasonably decent) bus crouched up the narrow and winding road towards the Shan Hills. Traffic is heavy and many times the bus has to stop to let another heavy vehicle pass a narrow turn. Two hours into the trip we stop at Pyin U Lwin for some 20 minutes. Enough to get food poisoning at the dodgy looking food outlet - there are actually a couple of takers.

Bagan is a dusty place - and this is just the end of the rainy season! Under the shower the water quickly turns brown and when I open the computer, I have to give it a quick wipe first. During sunset the haze does add to the spectacle though. I’ve started the day with another sunrise, don’t know the last time I got up at 5:00 twice in a row. Might be a lifetime first!

5:00 am, my alarm pulls me out of sleep with gentle melodies. Too early, no way I’m getting out of bed just to see the sun rise! Torn, I rest for another minute or two. Then my roomate’s alarm makes a noise you could hear aboard a nuclear submarine during critical reactor failure. Alright, I’m awake now! We grab our gear, put on a jumper and head across the road to hire ebikes.

Yangon’s main bus station is more a small village than a station. The individual companies have their offices along several small streets, which are all packed with buses. The air is filled with suffocating diesel fumes and still, people sit down for a drink or a bite to eat. Most of the drive up north was much quieter than the trip to Ngwe Saung. The Yangon-Mandalay highway is reasonably smooth and we used it for all but the last 2h of the 9h trip.

The Tazaungdaing Festival, also known as the Festival of Lights, held on the full moon day of Tazaungmon, the eighth month of the Burmese calendar, is celebrated as a national holiday in Burma (Myanmar) and marks the end of the rainy season. It also marks the end of the Kathina season, during which monks are offered new robes and alms. So much from Wikipedia. The area I’m staying at in Yangon (Sanchaung) is a little better off, people living here work as merchants or have their own business.

On the road between Pathein and Yangon, about an hour or two to go. This pot-holed parody of a street connects the capital to a city with a population of 300,000, which gives a good idea of the country’s general transport infrastructure. 3G is fairly solid though.

Walking down the street, I come by one of the many small restaurants and a waitress in front of it says “Hello” and asks whether I’d like some food. I say “No” and hold up a recently purchased bunch of bananas. “Bananaaaaaaa!” she shouts and bends over laughing. People here are really friendly. And genuine as well, which is a little surprise, considering this place basically lives of tourism. Similar places in Thailand (Koh Tao comes to mind) have long been spoilt by generations of drunken western youngsters, who do their best to disrespect local culture and people.

So the place does get a little more lively after sunset. Locals flock to the beach, drift around in the water (most can’t swim) and sip a beer. The centre of town is basically just a couple of shops and restaurants lined along an unsealed road. It’s easy to tell that everything is set up for bigger amounts of tourists, so I assume they are going to be much busier over the next 2-3 months.

The road between Yangon and Ngwe Saung is among the bumpiest I’ve ever experienced. Large parts of it are just the gravel of a road construction site - sleep is all but impossible. We arrive in the middle of the night and, without a room to check in to yet, head to the beach for a nap. Early in the morning the guest house’s restaurant is open and a local breakfast of coffee and fried rice brings some life back into my body.

Quiet day with a bit of work and exploring street food around the hostel. At the train station now, waiting for the bus to Ngwe Saung beach. Not a big fan of overnight buses but it was kind of the lesser of two evils.

Bus stops in Yangon are a noisy thing. Conductors of waiting and arriving buses shout directions and routes at the top of their lungs. For somebody who doesn’t understand the language nor is able to read the numbers, it is a somewhat confusing experience. Luckily I had student of the German language and future tourist guide Hanny with me, who had agreed to join me for a trip to the country side south-east of the city.

The big Shwedagon pagoda is one of the main sights in Yangon and accordingly the government and many merchants are happy to make a few dollars out of it. Today I came by one of the many smaller pagodas in the city and went inside for a short visit. The atmosphere was really relaxed with some people praying while others read a book or chatted with friends. Nobody paid much attention to me and I could just sit around and let my thoughts wander for a while.

I feel really creative with my post titles lately… After yesterdays social times, I had more nice experiences coming today. A local couchsurfer had contacted me a week or two ago and offered to show me around the city. We met in the early afternoon and I learned that she is studying German at the Goethe institute, hoping to work as a tour guide once finished. We talked in German the whole time and her skills were pretty good.

Looking for a taxi at the airport on Monday, another backpacker approached me and asked whether I’d be up for sharing a taxi. I certainly was and on the way into town I learned that my newly found companion had already spent time in Yangon in the past. Perfect - local advice! Today we met up for a little tour around downtown and Yangon looks a fair bit like other Southeast Asian cities.

Can’t believe I’ve already left Bangkok again. I had a couple of really good days and (as usually) was reluctant to leave Thailand. But with Myanmar calling, it was much easier to leave. I had an 11:30 flight out of BKK’s old airport, Don Mueang, which in terms of facilities isn’t exactly up to speed with Suvarnabhumi. Still, getting there is easy enough and the longest part of the trip was waiting for AirAsia to check people in at glacier speed.

Just a few metres down the street is what looks like a Buddhist temple. A monk is reading from a script and speakers broadcast his speech onto the street. People sit in the temple and in the street in front of it, listening. Religion in the neighbourhood seems to be mixed. Aside from the apparently Buddhist, I’ve seen a Hindu temple and a few guys with what I could swear is Muslim head cloth.